The Drag Strip List

Yep - The first time I ever went to a Drag Race was in 1956 at Double Eagle Drag Strip on the Outskirts of San Antonio Texas. My Father who could care less about racing heard about it from a customer who he sold a typewriter to so he asked me if I wanted to go see what it was about. Well, the people who were there racing turned out to do pretty well in Drag Racing. This guy from Florida was there with a Dragster that had eight carburetors on it. Name was Don Garlits. Some other people there were Vance Hunt (Hunt & Mabry) - Buck & Bowles Roadster - Floyd Head - Bobby Langley and a guy named August (Hands) Hartkopf. Everyone there eventually had successful Top Fuel cars (somewhere on the Drag News top 10 list) except "Hands" He had an E Gas 56 chevy that was the fastest E Gas car there was at that time. I was 13 and could get my license at 14 and decided E Gas was going to be my class. This man was a Giant (literly). My buddys and I would go the back roads on our motor scooters as much as we could to see the races. We would go and hang out near Hands car and try to talk to him. Once he was sitting down next to his car holding "Court" and he had his ring off. He was dropping a 50 Cent piece through it. One time He picked up the back of a 55 Chevy at the starting line while the guy inside reved it up and then dropped it to see if it would leave harder. Unfortunately he only lived to be 35 years old because he never stopped growing (pituitory gland?). One of his secerts was that he reground or replaced the lightened valves in the engine every week an had 8 long individual headers with a flat collector that I never forgot. A couple of years later I got to race him a couple of times and he was in a different Time Zone than I was. Trophyed once when he wasn't there.😁 I got to know Floyd Head with the "Poor Boys" dragster and talked to Vance for a long at the CHRR 08. He was #1 on the Drag News List 3 different times. He beat Garlits once and the Greek once for #1 and once for #2. I moved to California in 1961 but the Drag Strips around Texas gave me a "Disease" that you cannot recover from.
 
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Wow, Roger, that is so cool! I know all the Texas names except Buck & Bowles. Also have heard the story about Floyd Head & putting the 50 cent piece thru his ring. Am wondering about Double Eagle Drag Strip. Was it the forerunner to Alamo Dragway (which is still there, in the town of Marion). When I was in basic training in the Air Force, at Lackland AFB, in San Antonio (1964), we used to hear radio ads for Alamo drags. Vance Hunt, Bobby Langly in the Scorpion, on & on. Always wanted to go to the drags at Alamo. Wow, those are good memories.
 
thanks for posting that link. I sent him some info and pics from West Hampton Raceway Long Island NY where I started racing.
 
Cliff said:
Wow, Roger, that is so cool! I know all the Texas names except Buck & Bowles. Also have heard the story about Floyd Head & putting the 50 cent piece thru his ring. Am wondering about Double Eagle Drag Strip. Was it the forerunner to Alamo Dragway (which is still there, in the town of Marion). When I was in basic training in the Air Force, at Lackland AFB, in San Antonio (1964), we used to hear radio ads for Alamo drags. Vance Hunt, Bobby Langly in the Scorpion, on & on. Always wanted to go to the drags at Alamo. Wow, those are good memories.
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Cliff - Actually "Hands" was August Hartkopf and he was in Austin. Floyd was a guy in the Poor Boys car club and the main guy with the dragster. I had a 301" Chevy engine that he built in a T Roadster with a partner that we ran in Open Gas. Big time for highschool kids. The track changed its name to San Antonio Drag Raceway sometime after 1961 when I came to California because we heard the streets were crawling with Hot Rods and there was a Drag Race at every stop light. It was on the North East side of town near Randolph Field just off Loop 410. You were South East at Hwy 90 and loop 410. Alamo Dragway was on Hwy. 16 (Poteet Hwy) directly South of Lackland and Kelly Field. I think it was brand new in 1964 but I was already gone. Before that Car Clubs & the Jaycees had Drags at Castroville Airstrip - Martendale Field - Randolph Field - Austin and Kerville in the San Antonio area. There was no NHRA - AHRA - IHRA or any other association that I know of back there in those days. I believe that Double Eagle was the first purpose built Drag Strip in Texas. It was short and uphill after the finish line with a banked curve at the end because the Road was right there. Sombody flew across the road and landed in a field when they couldn't stop or make the curve. A bunch of us went to get him out and the farmer stopped us with a gun and made him pay for the fence and Okra he destroyed. The fast cars had to push back down the track because the return road was dirt for the first couple of years.
 
That is a great story. I guess Alamo Dragway today is north of San Antonio. When I visited my family in College Station a few years ago, I got them to take me to Lackland. Hadn't been there in over 50 years (recognized nothing). Anyhoo, we went by Alamo City Motorplex as it's called now on the way to Lackland. I know this track has been there a long time. It almost went belly up some years back, but seems to be doing OK now.

 
Ramjet said:
Cliff - Actually "Hands" was August Hartkopf and he was in Austin. Floyd was a guy in the Poor Boys car club and the main guy with the dragster. I had a 301" Chevy engine that he built in a T Roadster with a partner that we ran in Open Gas. Big time for highschool kids. The track changed its name to San Antonio Drag Raceway sometime after 1961 when I came to California because we heard the streets were crawling with Hot Rods and there was a Drag Race at every stop light. It was on the North East side of town near Randolph Field just off Loop 410. You were South East at Hwy 90 and loop 410. Alamo Dragway was on Hwy. 16 (Poteet Hwy) directly South of Lackland and Kelly Field. I think it was brand new in 1964 but I was already gone. Before that Car Clubs & the Jaycees had Drags at Castroville Airstrip - Martendale Field - Randolph Field - Austin and Kerville in the San Antonio area. There was no NHRA - AHRA - IHRA or any other association that I know of back there in those days. I believe that Double Eagle was the first purpose built Drag Strip in Texas. It was short and uphill after the finish line with a banked curve at the end because the Road was right there. Sombody flew across the road and landed in a field when they couldn't stop or make the curve. A bunch of us went to get him out and the farmer stopped us with a gun and made him pay for the fence and Okra he destroyed. The fast cars had to push back down the track because the return road was dirt for the first couple of years.
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Look in the dragstrip list for pa.& P.I.D. --look at that shutdown was up it many times no other like it. Mike
 
Cliff - I grew up at Alamo Dragway which was located in Poteet, south of San Antonio. My Dad raced there and at Little River in Temple all the time. I have lots of memories of that place - some good and some not so much.
 
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